


Touched By Something That Cannot Be Explained

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:10:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny doesn't know if he'll ever get used to the way Steve throws himself into things. Tag to 3.15, Hookman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touched By Something That Cannot Be Explained

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited. Apologies in advance if I futz later.

“He’s going to be all right,” Steve said, head tilting as if he were looking for someone who wasn’t there. “He has to be.”

Danny didn’t think he was the person Steve was speaking to or looking for, but he made a noise in the back of his throat to indicate agreement. It was all he could muster anyway, the events of the day catching up. The beep and hum of machines monitoring Duke Lukela’s heart rate and blood pressure and countless other things kept him on edge. He frowned unhappily at the unconscious, veteran sergeant and hated that they hadn’t been good enough and fast enough to prevent what was likely a ticket to permanent disability or early retirement for him. Duke was good people and this sucked. In a day filled of losses, Duke’s survival was a small victory he wasn’t fool enough to disregard.

“Gentlemen, time’s up. I’m going to have to ask you to leave now,” a nurse said as he bustled to Duke’s side. “He’ll be much more ready for visitors in a few days.”

“Okay,” Danny said, throat froggy. He cleared it. “Thanks.”

He stared at the center of Steve’s back as they exited the room, did not like the stiff set to his shoulders that meant Steve was still carrying a load that he didn’t need to. The prickle of anger mixed with relief that Danny had felt all day jacked up again and made his palms sweat, so he clenched his hands into fists and jammed them into his pockets. He and Steve didn’t speak all the way to the car, nor did they say anything when they slid in. This thing, difficult to name, built in him and eventually it would come out, but not here. Not at this moment. He gazed out the window, was vaguely aware when Steve called Chin or Kono or both. He didn’t listen to the words, concentrated on the dazed quality of Steve’s voice, which was tinged with self-recrimination and something else, something not quite as bad.

The itch was all he could think about, though, just under his skin, like someone had inserted an electrical lead into his epidermis and was zapping him with low currents. The sensation was familiar to him, not a new occurrence, but it was situational and meant different things at different times. He knew it was essentially all the same in the end, no matter the cause. It was adrenaline fleeing a taxed system, leaving him shaky, tired, but also buzzed and jittery. As a cop, his training helped alleviate the worst of it for routine situations – car chases, minor shoot-outs. Over the last few years, he even managed to avoid a major adrenaline crash when it came to helicopter gunfights and other ridiculous things normal cops didn’t have to put up with. That same training did piss-all in regards to working with Steve McGarrett and having to watch him toss caution to the wind when a case turned personal. The problem was so many cases were personal to Steve.

The problem was not really that at all.

Despite the wasteland of bitter resentment that was his relationship with Rachel these days, Danny felt a pang of regret for all those times she’d reacted badly to his job and he’d been oblivious to her point of view. He understood the flip side so much better now that he’d been flipped into it himself. He could honestly say he’d never wanted to be on this side of things, and at the same time would rather be nowhere else in the world. It was such a contradiction, a battle he had with himself far too often and that was part of why this particular brand of adrenaline itch was the most difficult to shake; it wasn’t all adrenaline. It was more, harsher, more damning and more crucial. His instincts told him to run as far away as he could before he got hurt; his instincts told him running was not an option. 

Steve drove them to Danny’s place and he didn’t have to ask why. A case involving his dead father was bad enough, but to have to go home to the possibility of his no-longer-dead mother being there would probably tip him over the edge. It was never that he didn’t get exactly what it was that triggered the recklessness he so hated in Steve. He understood far better than Steve was probably comfortable with him understanding. No, it wasn’t that which was keeping him so unsettled.

“Coming in?” he murmured as Steve pulled into the small lot of his complex. 

“Sure,” Steve said, but he sounded unsure.

While his modest apartment lacked the ocean view and _lanai_ , it was fully stocked with beer and privacy and he thought both were needed after today. Danny waved Steve toward the kitchen as he headed for the bathroom to try, futilely, to shower away the remainder of the itch. He didn’t waste time in there, but relished the beat of water against his face, then his own weary shoulders. He wasn’t surprised when Steve didn’t join him as he often did, was actually a bit relieved for the solitary time. He barely dried himself, wrestled a pair of boxers onto damp skin. Didn’t bother slicking hair back. He found Steve on the sofa staring at the blank television screen, beer on the coffee table unopened and sweating onto a cardboard coaster swiped from a bar down the street. He hated that look upon Steve’s face.

“Hey,” Danny said. “Didn’t I tell you before to stop? Not everything in this world is your responsibility. Duke’s alive, so are the other two guys. They can live their retirement threat-free. That’s something.”

Steve looked up at him with eyes far too soft and _wounded_ to belong to someone with his background as a Naval Intelligence officer and SEAL. But, damn it, it was those eyes that made him unable to run like he knew any reasonable person should. Danny reached out to squeeze Steve’s shoulder.

Then he saw a glint of gold in the fingers of Steve’s left hand and froze. 

He knew what it was at the briefest of glances – a bullet from Stoner’s rifle. The itch intensified as his brain unhelpfully replayed all the harrowing moments Steve had put himself in without a single thought about his safety or what it might mean to those who cared about him if the gamble did not pay off. Just like that, a switch flipped. Instead of seeing Steve here in need of kind words and soft touches, he saw Steve dart across the lawn of a meth-crazed gunman with little cover and no concealment and later draw the fire of a fucking sniper like both were the most logical courses of action in the world, like both didn’t increase the chances of death by a thousandfold. 

Danny skipped the encouraging pat on Steve’s shoulder. He didn’t want that thing in his house. He didn’t want to see it. He batted at Steve’s left hand and dislodged the bullet. It clattered to the floor and rolled under the coffee table. Steve made a small protestation. Danny paid attention to neither, as the itch of electricity sought and found an outlet. As Steve stood up to face him, Danny clocked him one in the jaw. Not hard because his coordination was for shit at the moment, all wild energy and anger. He was so angry and so scared and there was too much of that reserve adrenaline reintroducing itself into his system and just as quickly abandoning him to do anything but stand there and pant like a winded marathoner. 

“Danny,” Steve said, fingers probing at his bruised jaw. “What…?”

“You _fuck_ ,” Danny said as soon as he could collect his breath. 

There were more words in there, somewhere, but he couldn’t find them. His heart raced and it all came out of him like the punch he’d just landed. He grabbed Steve by the neck of his T-shirt and pulled him down, needing to feel. Just needing. He slammed his mouth against Steve’s in a kiss that was anything but pleasant, his lip cut against his own teeth, his fingers digging sharply into the nape of Steve’s neck. For a second, Steve stiffened but Danny didn’t care. He needed Steve to know this moment, what Danny had to do, wasn’t about him. He pawed at Steve, shoved him down the short hall to the bedroom, aware on some level that someone was saying something. It could be Steve or it could be him. Whoever it was and whatever they were saying didn’t matter. He had one goal in mind and only one. By the time they hit the bedroom threshold, he was naked and Steve’s shirt was off and his belt buckle undone.

Danny kept shoving until Steve toppled onto the bed, then followed him down. He mapped Steve’s torso with his teeth and tongue, ripped gasp after gasp out of the other man as he went from navel to nipple with brutal intensity. He had to have the taste and the feel, the unique blend of salt and skin that was Steve. He shook at the almost painful sensation of Steve’s hands moving gently against the electrically charged skin of his back, a counterpoint to his own frantic moves. His skin burned with the light, almost non-existent touch and he writhed a little. He bit at Steve’s left nipple, grunted as Steve arched into it and switched his attention to Steve’s neck. 

Against the sensitive skin of his cock, Steve’s jeans were rough, uncomfortable. The belt buckle dug into his stomach, but the swelling bulge of Steve’s arousal made him ignore the discomfort. Keeping his nose and mouth against the crook of Steve’s neck, he wriggled and pressed their dicks together. He bit and licked at Steve’s pulse point, kept the tip of his tongue there.

Steve’s hands on his back stilled and he pulled Danny into an awkward hug, limited his movement.

“It’s okay, Danny, I’m here,” Steve whispered. “I’m right here.”

The frenetic energy flowed out of him in one sudden whoosh. Danny slumped against Steve completely, so close he could feel the thrum of Steve’s heart. He was in a tunnel, could hear himself breathe harsh, hollow sounds that were almost like sobs. Steve’s hands eventually started moving again in slow, firm circles. One of them slid up to cup the back of his head and it felt good and he almost couldn’t stand it. He let himself rest there, in that embrace which was both safe and so absolutely full of risk it made him into this mess of a person right now. He smelled the day on Steve, the tang of stress-sweat and heartache, and he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that one day the heartache would be his and his alone. 

The worst thing about it was knowing that _Steve_ knew and still did the things he did as if his life weren’t as important to the people who loved him as those he sought justice for.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Danny said into Steve’s neck and the hands went still again. 

“Do this?”

“This. Us.” He stayed burrowed against Steve and the things that he should never say spilled from his lips anyway, “You joke about my concern like it’s the most fucking hilarious thing, but you know. You know me. And you know it would kill me.”

“Danny.” Steve swallowed once, twice. His throat clicked. “Please don’t.”

Danny didn’t know what Steve didn’t want him to do – leave him or talk about anything remotely like honest emotion. He rolled to the side, heaved a shaky breath. He stared at the ceiling, conscious of Steve’s left arm trapped under the small of his back. He lifted a hand to cover his eyes, pinch at the bridge of his nose. His lip throbbed where he’d bitten it, and everything else was numb. After a moment, Steve tugged his left arm free and his hand snagged at his, pulled it away from his nose and held on tight.

“This is who I am,” Steve said. “I can’t be anyone else.”

The very idea of Steve being someone else, of swapping out that danger gene of his for something more sedate, made Danny shudder. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wasn’t selfish enough to want Steve to be anyone but himself. The sum of his parts was what made the man. That was why it was so fucking exhausting to love the guy, and he did love Steve. He thought Steve might love him too, in his own way, but there would always be that lingering uncertainty of whether or not that was ever going to be enough. 

“I know,” Danny said. He turned his head and looked at Steve’s face staring at him so earnestly it made him feel like an asshole for doubting the depth of his feelings. “I don’t expect you to be, I really don’t. You just make it so hard sometimes.”

Steve lifted himself on an elbow and turned onto his side. He leaned over Danny, kissed him slowly, carefully, like he was fragile, and it was the most natural thing in the world to go with it. He lost himself in Steve’s mouth on his, in the easy give and take, in the way Steve’s hands now soothed against his skin and made the itch fade into obscurity, until the shivers coursing through him had nothing to do with fear. Steve pulled back and looked him dead in the eye.

“You’re not exactly a picnic yourself, Danny,” Steve said, soft smile playing at the corners of his mouth, eyes warm with affection. 

Danny barked out a short laugh, because there wasn’t anything but truth in that statement. The pair of them had no chance at working on paper, but somehow they did anyway. Two damned headcases propping each other up when they each needed it. If asked, he’d never be able to explain them using the words of which he was so fond. It had never been like this with anyone else, no total contradiction. With Rachel, he’d known beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was meant to be with her forever, when forever had clearly been an illusion. With Steve there was so much unknown it terrified him to think maybe it was the unknown that was necessary to make it all worthwhile. 

He glanced at Steve again, at that fond face. He clasped Steve’s hand still wrapped around his, shifted so they were facing each other and raised his other to trace his thumb along the tired, dark circles under Steve’s eyes. Those eyes immediately shone, wet with those same emotions Steve wouldn’t speak.

“Rough day all around,” Danny said.

Steve closed his eyes and sighed, his face tilting to Danny’s touch. Danny knew there was no quick fix to what made him fly apart at the seams sometimes. It was something he had to learn to live with. There were always going to be times when he just could not, but he knew there would also always methods to cope, simply because there was no other actual choice. He pressed his lips Steve’s closed eyes, tasted the salt of unshed tears that had collected on long lashes. He kissed Steve and nudged a leg between Steve’s, an invitation that was immediately accepted. When they finally got Steve undressed fully and began moving against each other in a much more tender rhythm than before, it was a mutual exchange of comfort. 

A beautiful, inexplicable thing.


End file.
